[12 -- Hastings, aided
by one Councillor's death, uses his full powers to have his appointment
reconfirmed]

But, while these things were passing
in England, a great change had taken place in Bengal. Monson was no more.
Only four members of the Government were left. Clavering and Francis were
on one side, Barwell and the Governor-General on the other; and the Governor-General
had the casting vote. Hastings, who had been during two years destitute
of all power and patronage, became at once absolute. He instantly proceeded
to retaliate on his adversaries. Their measures were reversed: their creatures
were displaced. A new valuation of the lands of Bengal, for the purposes
of taxation, was ordered: and it was provided that the whole inquiry should
be conducted by the Governor-General, and that all the letters relating
to it should run in his name. He began, at the same time, to revolve vast
plans of conquest and dominion, plans which he lived to see realised, though
not by himself. His project was to form subsidiary alliances with the native
princes, particularly with those of Oude and Berar,
and thus to make Britain the paramount power in India. While he was meditating
these great designs, arrived the intelligence that he had ceased to be
Governor-General, that his resignation had been accepted, that Wheler was
coming out immediately, and that, till Wheler arrived, the chair was to
be filled by Clavering.

Had Hastings still been in a minority,
he would probably have retired without a struggle; but he was now the real
master of British India, and he was not disposed to quit his high place.
He asserted that he had never given any instructions which could warrant
the steps taken at home. What his instructions had been, he owned he had
forgotten. If he had kept a copy of them he had mislaid it. But he was
certain that he had repeatedly declared to the Directors that he would
not resign. He could not see how the court possessed of that declaration
from himself, could receive his resignation from the doubtful hands of
an agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the proceedings which were
founded on that resignation were null, and Hastings was still Governor-General.

He afterwards affirmed that, though
his agents had not acted in conformity with his instructions, he would
nevertheless have held himself bound by their acts, if Clavering had not
attempted to seize the supreme power by violence. Whether this assertion
were or were not true, it cannot he doubted that the imprudence of Clavering
gave Hastings an advantage. The General sent for the keys of the fort and
of the treasury, took possession of the records, and held a council at
which Francis attended. Hastings took the chair in another apartment, and
Barwell sat with him. Each of the two parties had a plausible show of right.
There was no authority entitled to their obedience within fifteen thousand
miles. It seemed that there remained no way of settling the dispute except
an appeal to arms; and from such an appeal Hastings, confident of his influence
over his countrymen in India, was not inclined to shrink. He directed the
officers of the garrison at Fort William and of all the neighbouring stations
to obey no orders but his. At the same time, with admirable judgment, he
offered to submit the case to the Supreme Court, and to abide by its decision.
By making this proposition he risked nothing; yet it was a proposition
which his opponents could hardly reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal
for obeying what the judges should solemnly pronounce to be the lawful
government. The boldest man would shrink from taking arms in defence of
what the judges should pronounce to be usurpation. Clavering and Francis,
after some delay, unwillingly consented to abide by the award of the court.
The court pronounced that the resignation was invalid, and that therefore
Hastings was still Governor-General under the Regulating Act; and the defeated
members of the Council, finding that the sense of the whole settlement
was against them, acquiesced in the decision.

About this time arrived the news that,
after a suit which had lasted several years, the Franconian courts had
decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his wife. The Baron left Calcutta,
carrying with him the means of buying an estate in Saxony. The lady became
Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by great festivities; and all the
most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, without distinction of parties, were
invited to the Government-house. Clavering, as the Mahommedan chronicler
tells the story, was sick in mind and body, and excused himself from joining
the splendid assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it should seem, success in
ambition and in love had put into high good-humour, would take no denial.
He went himself to the General's house, and at length brought his vanquished
rival in triumph to the gay circle which surrounded the bride. The exertion
was too much for a frame broken by mortification as well as by disease.
Clavering died a few days later.

Wheler, who came out expecting to be
Governor-General, and was forced to content himself with a seat at the
council-board, generally voted with Francis. But the Governor-General,
with Barwell's help and his own casting vote, was still the master. Some
change took place at this time in the feeling both of the Court of Directors
and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs against Hastings were dropped;
and, when his original term of five years expired, he was quietly reappointed.
The truth is, that the fearful dangers to which the public interests in
every quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North and the Company unwilling
to part with a Governor whose talents, experience, and resolution, enmity
itself was compelled to acknowledge.